Bike Cops with Gas Masks

Bike Cops with Gas Masks, originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein.

St. Paul, MN,

A scene from yesterday's protests at the Republican National Convention.

Check Campaign Silo at firedoglake for all the details.

Comments

[mudkitty]

Gas masks - do they know something we don't know? What were they expecting?

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Tear gas. They used a lot of it.

I was lucky enough to be well out of the when those cannisters were launched. I heard reports of concussion grenades and rubber bullets. I saw a lot of people suffering the effects of pepper spray, including some indy journalists who were sharing the media space with us. I saw two AP photogs who got pepper spray in the face. "It's like sunscreen," the guy said. "You wipe it off, but it sticks to your face and then when you sweat it runs into your eyes again."

[cfrost]

Apparently the people in charge either -

Believe that rag-tag hippie protesters constitute a real and grave threat. (Some store and squad car windows have been broken.)

Believe that rag-tag hippie protesters constitute a serious nuisance but not something truly dangerous and someone along the chain of command is overreacting. (The crowd includes some “anarchists” but is in the main not violent.)

See this as a golden opportunity to show the Law and Order voters that the GOP has the balls to be authoritarian no matter what the pansy-ass civil liberties whiners say. (Make sure the press gets the bulletin about the buckets of urine.)

[The Phantom]

cfrost

Some of the "anarchist" protests in other countries have been very violent.